Rabbi Sarah Krinsky of Adas Israel Congregation said celebrating Simchat Torah is akin to dancing at a wedding: “It’s like those few times where you can fully let go and just let emotion wash over you and come out of you.”
The holiday may look slightly different this year. This Simchat Torah — Oct. 24 to 25 — marks one year on the Jewish calendar since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, which killed 1,200 people.
Hebrew for “the joy of Torah,” Simchat Torah marks the end of an annual cycle of public Torah readings and the start of a new cycle, and is typically celebrated with singing, dancing and parading with the Torah scrolls. Introspection and reflection are the themes of Simchat Torah this year in addition to the traditional celebratory activities.
“It’s hard to think about Simchat Torah this year without remembering Simchat Torah last year,” said Rabbi Michael Safra, the senior rabbi at B’nai Israel Congregation in Rockville. “When Oct. 7 happened, that was on Shemini Atzeret. We found out during services shortly before Yizkor, and we had to decide how to celebrate [Simchat Torah] that evening.”
He added that it was a challenge to balance the unprecedented attack on Israel with the need to keep traditions alive for the children in the community.
“Our children are the primary focus of the way we celebrate Simchat Torah. We don’t want to take that away from them. So we resolved that we were going to have Simchat Torah,” Safra said.
In celebrations past, community members at B’nai Israel sing and dance, and kids wave flags and receive candy.
“Children get very excited about that. And they should, because they should be excited about Torah in general,” Safra said.
Last year, Safra and other clergy members at B’nai Israel decided to keep the celebratory aspect in place despite the attack on Israel.
“We made our acknowledgements; we had an appropriately mournful hakafah, and the rest was a celebration. And this year, we’re going to be doing something similar,” Safra said.
His plan is to have one hakafah — a procession around the synagogue — pay tribute to the tragedy of Oct. 7 and the hostages in Gaza on the evening of Oct. 24 and the morning of Oct. 25. This hakafah is already traditionally more somber, and will not interfere with their celebration of Simchat Torah.
“The only thing different is acknowledgement,” Safra said, noting that B’nai Israel is setting intention, not changing the liturgy.
“It’s a joyous holiday; it has to be joyous,” Safra said. “The Torah commands that you be joyous. … Seven hakafot is a lot of hakafot — there is room to dedicate one to the mournful nature of our celebration this year.”
He added that his rabbinical assembly has written special prayers to commemorate the first anniversary of Oct. 7.
Members of Ohev Sholom Congregation in Washington, D.C., usually celebrate Simchat Torah with a “festive atmosphere in the entire neighborhood” complete with dancing, candy, a barbecue and people reading Torah, said Rabbi David Wolkenfeld.
This year, Ohev Sholom will collect tzedakah — charity — for organizations working on the ground in Israel to provide humanitarian aid in honor of the first anniversary of Oct. 7. The donations will support impacted communities in southern Israel, internal refugees, refugee families, families of reserve soldiers, hostage families, religious and ethnic minorities of Israel and domestic organizations for American college campuses such as Hillel.
The Ohev Sholom community will commemorate the anniversary of the attack from Oct. 7 to Oct. 25, the Hebrew anniversary of the tragic event.
“We are looking back at the year that has occurred and all of the terrible things that have occurred; we’re trying to avert some of the very worst suffering of the past year,” Wolkenfeld said. “We’re doing that with opportunities for introspection and reflection and conversation. We’re doing that with prayer to mark the losses of the past year.”
Remaining solemn on traditionally “happier” holidays is an ancient Ashkenazi practice, Wolkenfeld said.
“We actually carve out these moments of remembrance and sadness and grief on what would otherwise be really festive days,” Wolkenfeld said. “It’s cathartic and necessary. We can rejoice more wholeheartedly if we carve out time to remember family members and loved ones who aren’t with us for the holiday. … We pause to remember.”
“We have a sad moment, and then we’re able to rejoice,” Wolkenfeld said.
Krinsky said the clergy team at Adas Israel Congregation consistently tries to model and teach about what it’s like to hold multiple experiences simultaneously.
“On the one hand, we have broken hearts and on the other hand, we have overflowing hearts,” Krinsky said. “Those can both be true, and that’s something that we preach about all the time.”
Tali, the senior shlicha for the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington, who is identified by first name only for privacy reasons, had been living in a kibbutz 40 kilometers from Gaza when she was woken early in the morning on Oct. 7. Having just celebrated the last day of Sukkot the night before, Tali and her children ran to a communal shelter to evade the attack, where they stayed all day.
“Of course, it changed all of [our] perception[s]: of the holiday and [of] celebration. So we carry that experience in a very deep and profound way,” Tali said.
Despite this traumatic experience, she is choosing optimism while leading High Holiday events with fellow shlichim in the DMV area.
